Key events
Lewis Hamilton is slowing starting to get to grips with his new car having made the switch from Mercedes to Ferrari in the off-season. His fifth-placed finish in Bahrain was his highest of 2025 so far. Giles Richards has more on his progression ahead of Saudi Arabia:
Hamilton’s relationship with his new family has been under intense examination, a process not helped by the Ferrari playing catch-up at the same time Hamilton is learning his way around the new machinery.
Let’s take a look at how third practice finished up this afternoon.
There was very little to separate the two McLarens, with Lando Norris fastest by two hundredths of a second from Oscar Piastri.
Max Verstappen remains a little off the pace in his Red Bull, while Lewis Hamilton didn’t break the top 10 and sat seven places behind his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc. Williams performed the best of the mid-field runners.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
All four races in 2025 have so far been won by the driver that qualified fastest, with Oscar Piastri guiding his McLaren to victory from pole in Bahrain last weekend having been 0.168 seconds quicker than George Russell’s Mercedes in Q3.
Q1 at Jeddah’s Corniche Circuit on the banks of the Red Sea gets under way under the lights at 6pm (BST). In the meantime, feel free to email me with all manner of queries, comments or predictions.